It’s all about pride as fierce foes meet

HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson says pride will be at stake against Sydney at the SCG tonight.

While the Hawks languish in 17th and the Swans are 12th on the ladder, Clarkson said he expected the rivalry between the long-time powers to be as fierce as ever.

“Both sides have been really strong sides for the last 10 years and right at the current time both sides are sitting in the bottom part of the ladder,’’ he said yesterday.

“Both are proud clubs and both are going to be doing everything they can to try and climb up the ladder.

“It’s a close season and who knows what is going to happen in the second half of the season, but both those sides are proud clubs, they’ve got a tremendous rivalry, having played each other in big games and finals over the last five or six years.

“It’s Indigenous Round, we’ve got two of the more decorated Aboriginal footballers for their respective sides in Shaun Burgoyne and Lance Franklin playing in this game, so that just adds a little bit more intrigue to it.

“There’s lot of things riding on this game, but obviously the one that both sides are keen on the most is the victory.’’

Clarkson said he expected a strong response from his players after last week’s fadeout against Collingwood during which they coughed up a 43point lead to lose by 18.

In the fallout, there was strong debate over the impact of midfielder Tom Mitchell, the former Swan who amassed a career-best 50 possessions.

Clarkson said there would not have been any discussion about Mitchell’s effectiveness had the Hawks won.

“You never expect that someone is going to have 50 possessions, but he played the role that we asked him to do last week, so we were pleased with what he did,’’ he said.

“If we’d won the game, there would have been many, including those in the press, that would have said he was a significant reason for us winning. Because we didn’t win the game, everyone says it’s Tom Mitchell’s fault, for goodness sake.’’

Clarkson said star recruit Jaeger O’Meara was expected to return to full training soon after his latest knee setback, but the midfielder was unlikely to play before the bye in Round 13.

“He’s going along OK. We’re hoping that he’ll be able to step it up over the next few weeks,’’ he said.

“We probably wouldn’t anticipate he plays before the bye.

“But his training has been really strong and we said we’d get a really good conditioning block into him. He’s progressing well through that and he’ll be back into full training pretty soon, I reckon.’’